It feels like centuries have passed since the last time I heard the unmistakable mating call of my computer's modem dialing into an ISP. But even in today's broadband-saturated world, dialup still remains an affordable and sometimes necessary connectivity alternative while travelling or when your high-speed connection isn't available.

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I stayed with family last week for the holiday and used a $10 NetZero dialup account to get Lifehacker written. While at times it seemed grass grew faster than the throbber on my Firefox chrome turned, it didn't take long to optimize my setup for the fastest (read: most bearable) way to log on, get done and get off. Here are some strategies for making the absolute most of the limited flow of bytes over a slow Internet connection, be it via an analog dialup line or cell phone modem connection.

Configure your browser for a slow connection.

Chances are your web browser's set up to assume the network is fast and everpresent. A few small changes for your dial-in session can make a big difference. Increase the size of your browser's cache so that you re-download the same web page elements less often. My Firefox cache size was set to 50000KB (~49 megabytes). Chances are you've got at least 100MB of free disk space to spare, so up this number to 100,000. To do so in Firefox, go to Preferences (on Windows, Tools-> Options) and under Privacy expand the Cache tab and set the number, like so (click to enlarge):

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Note: Firefox 1.5 speaks in MB, not KB, so there the upped cache size number would be 100.

Also in Firefox's preferences panel, under Web Features, disable Java to prevent a bandwidth intensive applet from slowing your surfing session to a crawl. If you want real speed and your inner asthete won't be too offended, also under Web Features uncheck "Load Images." This will, of course, take away the pretty pictures on web pages, but it will significantly speed up your page load. Set up sites which should be the exception to the no images rule using the - you guessed it - Exceptions button.

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Using Firefox's profile feature, you can set slow connection preferences separate from your default profile. See How To Manage Profiles at Mozilla's Help for more info on setting up Firefox profiles.

Block and disable bandwidth hogs.

Five minutes on dialup and you begin to resent every unnecessary pixel, advertisement and Flash movie on the web. Install an ad blocking extension (Adblock for Firefox works well [1]) and/or FlashBlock to avoid losing minutes of your life so you can shoot the turkey and win an iPod.

Speaking of bandwidth hogs, if your podcasting software (like iTunes) is set to automatically download new episodes when you connect to the Internet you'll qualify for Social Security before you can view your browser's homepage. Be sure to disable automatic podcast downloads when you're on a slow connection.

Use tabs to load pages while you work.

The real beauty of tabbed browsing shows its efficient self in the face of a slow Internet connection. When searching the Web for information or clicking on links from your RSS aggregator, click your mouse scroll wheel or Control/Command click to open up each page in a new tab. This way you can read one page while waiting for the others to load. If the amount of time you're on the phone line is an issue, log on, open up a bunch of pages in multiple tabs, disconnect and read offline. Speaking of offline...

Work offline wherever possible.

Sure always-online webapps are all the rage with the kids these days, but the fact is we're not always online. The ability to work offline makes a huge difference in productivity when you're dependent on a slow connection. Here's a quick list of offline work examples that can help you get things done when you're dialing in:

Use a desktop RSS reader and download all unread articles for offline reading.

IMAP email users who already use a desktop email client, set your folders to download messages locally for working offline.

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Compose blog posts in desktop blogging software like Ecto instead of connecting to the web to write. Download bank transactions to Quicken or Microsoft Money instead of connecting to your bank's Web site to to pay bills.

A slow connection to the Internet can be an exercise in utter frustration, but tweaking your tools to fit the task can make it a lot more bearable - at least until Aunt Bertha upgrades to DSL.

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Footnote:

[1] A word regarding Adblock: Lifehacker is an advertising-supported operation. I personally and sincerely ask readers to endure the ads whenever possible, only because neither of us would be here without them. Of course, extreme circumstances call for extreme tactics, and Adblock on a very slow connection is a necessity. That said, I'm off to hide from Lifehacker's ad sales staff who are now charging me wielding bats. [back to top]

Gina Trapani is the editor of Lifehacker and is thrilled to be back on the information highway at a high speed. Her semi-weekly feature Geek to Live appears every Wednesday and Friday here on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live RSS feed to get notified of new articles in your newsreader.